TwD1
Main Characters POV *'Carson Monroe' *'Charlotte Sykes' *'Ronald Vineham' *'Stacey Jackson' *'Naomi Haywood' Non-POV *'Darren Davies aka The Rat Man' *'Will Evans' *'Meg Evans' *'Rob Richardson' *'Nick Anderson' *'Gary Orwell' Main Plot Carson Monroe awakes in the room he shared with Tiffany Hinton, under the alias of Nicola Croft. He walks outside to see the community decimated, and finds corpses in the street. He travels to Lance's apartment, and there he finds the butchered bodies of Mark and Emma. Believing all his friends to be dead, he contemplates suicide, only to be interrupted by Charlotte. The pair hole up in the apartment Charlotte shared with Bill and Madi, and as they eat, they discuss what they think happened. Charlotte believes that Trent is behind the attack, and Carson tells Charlotte about Nicola's real identity. The pair decide to leave the community and head back to Northleach, and on their way out, two young women named Stacey and Naomi, who were kept as sex slaves by the Hintons. The girls tag along with Carson and Charlotte, and together they steal Brian's camper van and head back towards Northleach. On the way, they stop at a roadside service station for supplies, and are almost overwhelmed by a mass of walkers. However they're saved by a group of bikers, led by a man named Will Evans, who agree to head to Northleach with the group once they hear of how defensible and isolated it is. Upon arrival at Northleach, the group finds that a community has already been built there, and Will accuses Carson of lying to him. Carson and Charlotte convince Will that the village was abandoned when they left, and Will comes up with a new plan: a few of them go to the gates and ask for entry, and if it's okay, they come and get the others. Will, his wife Meg and two other bikers named Gary and Rob go to the gates, and Naomi insists on joining them; arguing that they'll seem more friendly if they have a young girl with them. However, when the gates open, the Rat Man is revealed to be behind them. He thanks Will for bringing his toy back, only to gun him and the other bikers down, and shoot Naomi in the knee. When he comes out of the gates to grab her, Stacey shoots at him, and he realises that there are more people in the woods. Carson, Charlotte and Stacey get away; but Nick, the last of the bikers, is killed. Carson leaves the girls hidden away while he goes to find shelter, but falls over while running from a small herd of walkers and hits his head. He wakes up in front of a fire in what appears to be a cottage, and is welcomed by an old man named Ronald, who saved him. Carson tells him about the girls, and Ronald goes out to get them, but he makes Carson stay behind. Charlotte and Stacey, meanwhile, start to have a clash of personalities. This is compounded when Ronald approaches them, as Charlotte initially believes him to be a member of the Hinton community while Stacey insists that she's never seen him before. After a brief argument, they go with him, and he explains to them and Carson how he stays hidden from both walkers and people. He encourages them to come birdwatching and fruit picking with him the next day, and they enjoy it, however the moment is ruined when they find Naomi's mutilated body chained to a tree in the woods as a warning. Stacey panics and tries to bolt, which results in her tripping a tripwire and being caught in a net. Ronald manages to free her, and the group escapes back to Ronald's cottage. That night, Stacey seduces Carson and the pair sleep together. Charlotte tries and fails to convince Ronald to move from his cottage, and also to stop going out to birdwatch, because he seems obsessed with spotting a tree sparrow. She, Carson and Stacey agree to stay with Ronald; and for a moment they seem to feel like a family. Several days later, however, they go out to one of Ronald's bird-hides to find it being trashed by the Rat Man and some of his people. The Rat Man orders his men to burn it down, and Ronald, for the first time since the outbreak, attempts to reveal himself; which results in the Rat Man's group noticing them. Luckily, Carson's group manages to escape by hiding amongst the same herd of walkers from earlier. As they make the break back to the cottage, however, Stacey is bitten on the ankle by a walker hidden in the copse. The others manage to get her inside and put her upstairs, however she soon passes away, after telling Carson that she loves him. Unable to sleep that night, Carson comes downstairs to find Ronald sitting out by the fire. He's blaming himself for what happened, because he insisted on going out birdwatching, and he refuses to accept Carson's argument that it wasn't his fault. He tells Carson about how his wife Julia was a birdwatcher like him, and tree sparrows were her favourite bird. She died in a similar way to Stacey at the start of the outbreak, and since then, he hadn't seen a single tree sparrow. After he and Carson have a bit more of a heart-to-heart, they agree to get revenge on the Rat Man for what he did to the bikers, Naomi and Stacey. They leave Charlotte in bed, and head out for one of the Hintons' outposts. When they get there, they manage to subdue two guards and get inside the outpost. They take supplies and a map of the Hintons' community, and cover the outpost with some of the fuel they found inside. However, as they go to leave, they look outside and see three more guards. Burning the outpost down as a distraction, Carson and Ronald almost get away, however the men notice them and begin to shoot at them. Ronald seems to stagger back but says he just slipped, and the pair manage to take down the three guards. While walking back to the cottage, Ronald slows down, and eventually collapses. He reveals that he was shot by one of the guards, and after saying a few last words to Carson, dies. Carson carries him back to the cottage, where Charlotte runs out and then falls to the ground in tears. They bury him in his garden, next to his wife, and as they read a euology for him they see a tree sparrow watching from the garden wall. After saying their goodbyes, the pair head inside, and the bird flies away. Carson and Charlotte both agree that they need to leave before the Rat Man or anyone else from the Hintons' community finds them; however Charlotte mentions having an idea. The next day, the Rat Man arrives with twenty men, and Carson and Charlotte manage to kill every one of the soldiers using a combination of traps and sneak attacks. They capture the Rat Man, and force him to confront his greatest fear: rats. They chain him to tree just like he did to Naomi, cut his belly open, put a rat inside, and then sew it shut; poking some holes in him so that the rat can breath. They return to Ronald's cottage and burn it to the ground before more guards can arrive, as they know that Ronald wouldn't want his home defiled by thugs. The epilogue shows them revisiting the Rat Man, who is dead, the rat having eaten it's way out of his stomach. They agree that this is only the beginning.